


at the end of the world

by noyabeans (snowdrops)



Series: writing with snowdrops (saso 2017) [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Guns, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 13:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11358669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowdrops/pseuds/noyabeans
Summary: kawanishi and futakuchi are a pair of hardened survivors who may not have very much left, but damn it all they still have one another.





	at the end of the world

**Author's Note:**

> fill for **saso 2017 bonus round 1: alternate universes**.  
>  original prompt is [here](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=10614802#cmt10614802).
> 
> (or: how I walked straight into a bait)

Just a year ago Kawanishi would have been flabbergasted if told that he would be holding a gun while inside a provisions shop, scavenging for what little canned food tins and medication he can pilfer.

It’s been a long year since - the once-bustling streets are now devoid of life, the birds that used to chirp in the early dawn hours now muted, tall looming skyscrapers with shiny glass panels all but reduced to mere skeletons of their previous glory - and the weight of the gun in his hand is no longer a stranger.

* * *

Sometimes he wonders how he managed to survive the end of the world. He’d been underground when the invaders first arrived, wielding weapons that glowed orange; they’d destroyed civilisation in a matter of months, state-of-the-art military equipment be damned. What survivors were left had fled to the caves and the darkness, their only sanctuary from the monsters that walked overhead.

Kawanishi is among the few reckless ones who decided to venture out and stay on land. He’s seen firsthand how living in an enclosed space with neither day nor night, slowly drives one’s mind to its own ruin - and Kawanishi might not be a fighter, but neither is he a quitter. Between dying at the hands of a monster in the light and wasting away in the shadows, he will always opt for the former.

Early on in the post-invasion days, he’d entertained the thought of death - an easy escape from the horrors of the living hell his world had been transformed into overnight. When he first got his hands on the pistol, he’d considered ending the agony, leaving himself another fallen statistic by the hands of the invaders.

But now, pistol and supplies in hand, those thoughts have been pushed far to the back of his mind, the thirst for death now replaced by a hunger to survive.

It’s all because of Futakuchi, really. They’d first met in a pharmacy two months after mankind surrendered, Futakuchi ransacking the shelves in search of medicine. He’d almost raised his gun at Kawanishi, thinking him a monster in human skin - so rare were humans spotted on land - but Kawanishi had noted the ugly jagged gash running straight down his leg, deep and bloody, and he’d winced a bit at the sight before offering to bandage it for him.

Futakuchi was slow to trust, which was fine by him. They’d stuck together after that first meeting, though Futakuchi kept him at an arm’s length and made sure his pistol was always within reach whenever they turned in for the night. In Futakuchi Kawanishi saw a person who once had everything, reduced to someone left with nothing. The way he carried himself was loud and expressive, his movement and strides confident, but the light in his eyes was dim, and he spoke little and laughed even less.

Such were the consequences of the invasion. Reticent by nature, Kawanishi had left him be for the first month or so, never talking more than necessary - usually at mealtimes, when they discussed the places they’d staked out and what few supplies they’d nicked; never anything about their lives before the world ended - until the day that he was woken up by Futakuchi’s screams.

Futakuchi had been yelling garbled words that Kawanishi could make neither head nor tail of, but he’d shaken Futakuchi until he woke up; there’d been tears in Futakuchi’s eyes that night, the one and only time Kawanishi had ever seen them.

That night was the tipping point, so to speak. The words had fallen trembling from Futakuchi’s lips, about how his family had forced his sister and him to run the other way, about how he’d watched his sister get mowed down by the invaders in front of his eyes, and how he’d fled and taken up residence in the dark corners of the city, with nothing but the clothes he was wearing, still stained by his sister’s blood. Kawanishi had been helpless, only able to provide a listening ear and nothing more than a comforting touch, unable to even fathom the horrors that Futakuchi had witnessed.

And in that moment when Futakuchi rasped “Sorry for letting you see this side of me-” Kawanishi had thought to himself, that before him stood a person stronger than Kawanishi himself could ever imagine to be.

* * *

“Taichi, you’re taking way too long,” Futakuchi’s voice bounces off the walls of the empty shop as he steps in. “Please don’t tell me you fell asleep while looting treasure.”

“What do you take me for,” Kawanishi says with a snort, stuffing the last of the canned beans into his backpack and turning around, immediately doing a double take as he takes in the sight of Futakuchi. “Woah, what happened to you?”

There’s grime and dirt all over the left side of Futakuchi’s body. Futakuchi grimaces. “Ran into them near the train station when I was coming back. I had to go underground to shake them off, but it’s been so long that I got lost and ended up in the sewers.”

That earns a cracked laugh from Kawanishi. “Your true home, huh? Did you get anything good?”

Futakuchi grins, that smug expression smoothing out his features, making him look so much younger, so much more like his true age. In happier times, Kawanishi thinks Futakuchi would have worn this expression much more. Nonetheless, he’s seen it more in recent days, which is small victory in itself.

“I found a way out through the city walls.”

There, in an abandoned provision shop in the middle of a ghost city, dim light from the cold sun outside their only witness, Kawanishi feels the first seeds of hope take root in his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr (rielity)](https://rielity.tumblr.com/) | [twitter (noyabeans)](https://twitter.com/noyabeans) | [haikyuu writing journal](https://noyabeans.dreamwidth.org/)


End file.
